You’ve heard the claim, harder than ever to refute, that every company is a technology company. The government equivalent of that is that every agency is a technology agency. No group’s work can be accomplished without technology underpinning it. Even the field work of people in parks and recreation, law enforcement, public works and so many others is organized and managed by tech platforms to keep track of schedules, call volume, inventory and general efficiency.
And all of that was the case prior to the pandemic. But the crisis and its lingering aftermath that includes a much heavier emphasis on digital government has underscored how central functional technology is to a well-run government enterprise. Many technology leaders had the ear of policymakers in their jurisdiction pre-COVID, but many more do now. And similarly, many IT shops worked closely alongside organizational business leaders to consider and eventually deploy solutions to meet business needs. But the pandemic cemented these collaborations in new ways.